Kading Receives Two Scholarships at ADEA Annual Session

Cherri L. Kading, a student in the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Dentistry’s Graduate Dental Hygiene Education Program, was named the recipient of two scholarships at the recent American Dental Education Association (ADEA) Annual Session in Dallas.

Kading received the 2008 ADEA/Sigma Phi Alpha Linda DeVore Scholarship, awarded to students in allied dental education programs at the baccalaureate, master’s or doctoral degree level. The scholarship, with a $1,000 award, recognizes the memory and the 30-year dental education career of DeVore. She was president of the American Association of Dental Schools, now ADEA, in 1994 and president of the Supreme Chapter of Sigma Phi Alpha, the national honorary society of the dental hygiene profession, from 1997 to 1998.

Kading also received the ADEA/Crest Oral-B Scholarship for Dental Hygiene Students Pursuing Academic Careers, which supports dental hygiene students who are pursuing education beyond an associate’s degree and who have an interest in an academic career. Each year, two dental hygiene students receive the $2,000 award; Ann O’Kelly Wetmore of Idaho State University was the other recipient. Procter & Gamble sponsors the scholarship.

Kading, who has worked within the field of dentistry since 1977, received her certificate in dental assisting after high school and received her degree in dental hygiene in 1996. “I loved dental hygiene, but secretly what I wanted to do was to teach the profession,” Kading said.

She enrolled in the University of Wisconsin-Stout’s Career Technical Education Program, receiving the Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement during her last year in the program and graduating with her bachelor’s degree in May 2007.

“Cherri applied to the graduate program at UNC because she wanted to further her interest in dental hygiene and make a larger contribution to the profession,” said Rebecca Wilder, associate director and director of the School of Dentistry’s Graduate Dental Hygiene Education Program. “Since Cherri has been at UNC, she has shown the qualities of an excellent academician – those of inquiry, curiosity and an exemplary attitude towards her peers, faculty and the students she teaches in the classroom and clinic.”